your mouth to god's ears
by Aiko Isari
Summary: Tell me how you create a child soldier. Is it with harsh conditions or honeyed words? Or is it by giving them a light at the end of the tunnel? How did this happen to you? (Maki-centric) Spoilers for Loss
1. 1

_warning for canonical character death and trauma._

* * *

1\. Opening

People say it just takes one bad day for a person to snap. For Maki it took a single moment.

Granted, she was eight years old. It was an important time. Development happens with a blink at eight years old.

Death happens too slowly at eight years old.

Himekawa Maki watches her Digimon die and does not understand.

Megadramon falls to pieces inside a ball of light. Megadramon doesn't cry or scream or look at her. He has stopped looking since he fell. Since the aches and pains and pulses of power.

Now he will never look at her again.

She thinks she might throw up.

The weight feels like an iron ball, like she has finally hacked up her lungs. But she doesn't. It's an exaggeration. This pain is not an exaggeration.

Why?

She wants to scream. She can only whisper. Why? Why not her? Why was she here if she couldn't do anything?

Why was she here if he was just going to _die?_

Maki sits down, rather, she falls down, on her bottom. Her body is empty and heavy all at once. She can't drop her head, for whatever reason, but she needs to keep looking up and up and up. Until things make sense. Until something reappears.

Nothing shows. No gently patterned egg or his smiling, goofy face. Just the four and their humans touching down.

She hears Daigo's sandals through her fingertips and makes herself look at him. Like a broken dam, the tears flow.

* * *

 ** _A/N:_** So Loss was a fun ride and this and others are happening because of it! Enjoy! Please read and review!

Challenges: Mini-Fic Masterclass (Drabblechap Tri), number 7, each exactly 250 words, Diversity Writing F35. write a fic that explores trust.


	2. 2

2\. Play

Life didn't go on hold while they were gone.

Life goes on even faster now that they're home.

Daigo doesn't let go. He _refuses_ , through his tears, to let go of her hand. He walks her home and stays the night before even thinking of asking their parents.

Maki is out of tears, but her eyes are like those of a pandas. She doesn't eat. She barely drinks.

And then days start passing.

Sometimes they're slow and Maki has nothing to do but think about the past, about the smoke that used to naturally pass between her fingers. Sometimes a month will pass and she won't think about him at all.

Her Digivice remains silent. Daigo's beeps once in a while. He ignores it. He glares at it even. Her friend has never looked so angry and solemn.

And it's all for her.

(She hasn't cried since that day. She can't. She really can't.

She wants to so, so badly.

Instead she settles for barely talking instead. She settles for computer manuals that are out of date and daylong trips to Akihabara. She settles for papercuts and lonely long nights.

Then she turns eleven for real and it's not quiet or lonely anymore. Her Digivice begins to cry. She almost expects to see tears coming out of its screan. Instead it just screams on and on and she thinks her parents will wake up.

 _(They don't. They never do.)_

It goes quiet. Maki, eyes watering, throws it into her desk.


	3. 3

3\. Anger

Perhaps it was desperation, or even desire to move forward, but Maki starts hunting down computer manuals.

Sometimes Daigo joins her, sometimes he is at club. More often than not he will at least peer over her shoulder and worry. She pretends not to feel anything but his eyes, trembling with concern, touch her heart a bit too much. She can't react to it. She can't turn to it. She can't say this.

She needs help. She's eleven, not stupid. She knows she needs help but Earth is still learning how to be good to things that are weak and small and the Digital World is not kind nor sweet. It is blood and destruction and pain. So much pain.

But still. She can't leave it behind. She can't let it go.

Bakumon was gone. Why? That was what she had not understood. Maki still doesn't. What had happened that made him unworthy?

Was it her fault?

Of course it was. It has to be, because Bakumon had been dazzling.

She chews her nails to nubs and learns and learns. Every second is devoted to seeing the other side again. Every minute to her personal freedom.

Daigo says he'll come with. Well, he says it now. He probably can't. He shouldn't. Baihumon would get upset. After all, he is very busy with protecting the world. And the children are just children now.

 _That's what he said and it was so cruel, Daigo is so gentle why would you say that?_


	4. 4

_Warnings: Bipolar character, mental trauma, badly handled grief._

* * *

4\. Outstretched

She takes her medicine and really it does absolutely nothing.

It does nothing and yet she can think but she can think no matter what. The doctors say she'll just think _more clearly_ and all the while her father has a look like the doctor is spouting magecraft and the only reason she doesn't hurt him for making her take the medicine is because he doesn't want her to.

But she has to for some stupid reason and that stupid is probably because she keeps punching people and crying and Daigo doesn't stop her.

Daigo encourages her, actually.

Well, of course he does. He understands. He's just as angry.

Their friends meet them once in a while. They say Daigo looks well. They ask how she's doing. And their genuine concern is like swallowing someone else's vomit.

They don't understand that while she's crumbling, Daigo is _seething_. They don't see that Daigo is only calm because he's scared he's going to hurt them or let her hurt them.

She doesn't like hitting people but god it's easy. God it's not hard at all. They're all so weak. They tease her for stumbling over each word and Daigo for just existing and if she had Bakumon, she would give them horrible nightmares of blood but she doesn't have him.

Then, one day, she gets an email. It's a stranger's email. She thinks about deleting it, like her parents would tell her.

But she knows that name. She knows who Gennai is.


	5. 5

5\. Seeds

A seed of doubt is planted.

She doesn't hear from Gennai for a long time but that's all she needs to doubt the laws of the universe as they stand. That's all she needs to doubt him to think, how possible is reality now? It scares her, this very real possibility that her Bakumon might return someday, that there is a new adventure waiting for her. If they can do that, the others can come back and everyone can look just a little less unhappy all of the time. Even Daigo. He's not over it either. He pretends to be. He pretends like all of the others do.

They stop talking to her because of it.

She pretends it isn't painful.

Her playing with computers takes on new meaning. She absorbs herself into them, into information that flows into her head like the seamless stitches on her clothes. Homeostasis doesn't visit her head too often but sometimes its remains linger and feel warm and safe and for a moment she can forgive. Well, she can always forgive. The device isn't at fault. Or so she hopes.

Maki swallows a pill and nearly throws it back up again.

It's so hard to breathe, knowing Bakumon could be within reach. She just has to look and look and fight and fight. But she can't fight with her fists anymore. She has to use her head and her head is a good one, strong and still clear on some days. When she remembers.


	6. 6

6\. Heat

Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. You have to breathe.

He repeats that in her ear. He repeats it until she actually hears it, until she hears her breathe.

The world swims back into color and sound. The world is too heavy, too much.

Daigo holds her and that _doesn't work._ She lashes out, squirming and screaming. But the panic only makes the choking harder and even that goes waway. The world fades away and she can't hear anyone's voice, not even his.

But eventually everything runs out. The energy runs out. There's only tears and unbearable frustration.

"Sorry," she chokes out. "Sorry. I just… I'm sorry."

"Me too," Daigo says. "Me too. I'm so sorry, Hime."

And they're just going to have to feel sorry for each other with each other. She holds on tight, he grips her tighter, and they stay under the table, like they aren't supposed to be heading for adulthood together in heated passion or whatever it is supposed to be.

Eventually, impulse overtakes, or perhaps propels, misery, and Maki leans up into him, forward in a gesture that belongs behind closed doors and with avoiding gazes, not beneath a table where anyone could see or hear. But Daigo goes along with it. It's clumsy and well meaning, but clumsy still and it doesn't comfort. It does nothing but bring sensation and clacking teeth and heat. It is a familiar but unsafe place. They breathe through their noses and imagine they're somewhere else. Somewhere better.

Something goes unspoken.


	7. 7

7\. Human

They're young and in love and it's two months of freedom from herself before she even thinks of Bakumon again and it's weird.

It's only noticeable after strange emails end up in her spam folder. And she forgets and forgets and it doesn't matter to her that she's forgetting.

Daigo, in his own way, has made good on his word.

No, it's not just him. It's real work and internships. It's the real world reminding you that your first love is supposed to be forgotten, that your old favorites and loves are something you need to let go of one day.

She thinks about it. She thinks about it long and hard.

But how can she let go of something she wasn't ready to let go of?

Maki goes in circle after circle and punches things that make her knuckles swell (that at the moment are not people.) because that's the thing that pushes people away.

Going back will hurt people, possibly endanger people. She isn't sure of all the details. Maki isn't even sure it's worth it. Bringing him back may not even be worth it in the grand scheme of things. But to keep on the irrational path is supremely, profoundly natural isn't it? Weren't they chosen for their irrationality?

What were they chosen for?

Why them? Why anyone? Why couldn't they save themselves?

Digimon were different from humans. Digimon had to survive to continue. They deserved to live and didn't understand how.

Humans had decided to learn.


	8. 8

8\. Chains

The dreams return.

They aren't dreams of her Bakumon, not exactly. They aren't dreams of him dying.

They are dreams of Daigo, not moving. They are dreams of their friends, one with glasses askew and twisted. The girl's hair is burnt, boy's clothes are torn. Only she remains, with data floating from her pudgy fingers.

The clown is smiling.

She wakes up on those nights, gripping her bed sheets so hard and sometimes with Daigo holding them still. He looks at her like she'll disappear. She laughs at the thought. He doesn't understand. He can't understand.

She will survive. She always survives. He'll be taken away, taken forever. Someone or something needs her alive for reasons she is too young, too sheltered- she realizes dimly, to comprehend.

What if they had never met, she can't help but wonder. What if they had never had such a magical adventure? Would they be together now? Would she feel so strongly about everything now?

(He would believe yes, she's sure of it. Maki despises her own uncertainty.)

Her mouth is dry from medicine.

She catches him knitting for his little cousins. He puts the baby beanie on her and looks so proud, so hopeful.

Maki swallows the lump in her throat. Her eyes sting.

She realizes now, he really has grown up.

She looks at her longer legs, her pressed clothes, the severity in her face.

Has she? Has she really? She feels the same, so weak, so full of imagination.

She hasn't.


	9. 9

9\. Water

Let darkness rise up like a river. Let the ocean destroy all that is held dear and make the world clean again.

It was a message that made no sense at first, a message that was burning with the idea of the world falling to pieces most inelegantly and likely full of screaming. Then the answer swung and clicked itself into place.

Gennai was asking her to kill people. To kill digimon. To make conditions for Bakumon to exist again. So many would have to suffer for this one success. So many would die. Sure, they would likely all come back if this succeeded. But they would still die. Like their friends had died, like Bakumon had died.

Honestly, that should have been enough of a reason to say yes. The reboot would solve everything. None of it would have ever happened, ever existed, ever been necessary. They would have never been necessary to begin with. Then… then would she had ever met Bakumon in the first place?

Would they have mattered?

She ran to Daigo then, the thought of nothing mattering not even what she loved having. She called him up and met him at his house and let him just talk. Let him pull her up like a flailing child under the sea.

"Help me," she breathed into Daigo's ear, a prayer, a blessing, a failed hope really.

He couldn't help her make this decision. At most, he would help her forget.

That was exactly what she needed.


	10. 10

10\. Mutual

The thing that she loves the most about Daigo is that when push comes to shove, he does feel the same way. It's never quite _enough_ like empathy but he understands. She doesn't have to say anything and even if he wants her to, he doesn't ask.

Daigo was running his fingers and a comb through her hair when she opened her eyes from a restless sleep. He was smiling, a dimpled little thing that was so desperately full of love and joy and she wanted right then and there to-

 _end it_

-because there was something like commitment there in that smile something like 'til death do us part', till the duties of their people are fulfilled. Something permanent and with Bakumon dead she didn't know if she could deal with that kind of permanence. And yet, it sounded so enticing. Not sensible, but enticing. Like if things went inevitably down the slope of color they were going to with or without her, she would have some reason not to go where it turned black.

What about Bakumon?

For the first time, that question irritates her mind, makes it red. She fumbles her fingers towards the nightstand because that voice keeps whispering and it takes on the old man's soft tone, softly guiding and cajoling to not take them, her mind is better when she's off them and that is not true, right?

His hand closed her grip on the bottle and Maki inhaled their scent from the pillow.


	11. 11

11\. Outside

The bottle shook in their shared grip. She willed her thumb over his knuckles, willed herself to consider opening it.

She heard his teeth softly chattering in fear and-

Guilt. Guilt was in her eyeballs and she leaned up and looked very hard. She looked into soft, black, warm, terrified- and swallowed. He was shaking from something else, the effort of pretending to be better when he was just not okay. She made herself nod.

"Yeah," she finally said out loud. "Maybe not right now, maybe after we've both decided we're so broke it doesn't matter anymore, but… yeah. Let's make this real."

She watched his face and thought of Bakumon, thought of his earnest love and selfless devotion. She saw Daigo all over that, all in that.

But Daigo was also petty. He hated his sweets being stolen, constantly wrote terrible notes. He henned over even the slightest fray in a shirt. No one was allowed to make the bed but him. He forgot important dates and meetings because he was horrible with numbers. But he loved her, he loved her and it wasn't enough but he loved her and she-

 _Oh, I'm doomed,_ Maki thought. _I'm sorry Bakumon._

The choice was easy. Too easy. Because there was no proof, in the end. This was the only way he could come back. But it was not back to her, never back to her. And that would mean losing this.

She was so selfish that she cried.

"I'm so sorry."


End file.
